The UN immigration agency says two bodies have recovered from Djibouti, but dozens of migrants and five Yemeni crew remain missing.
Four boats carrying migrants from Africa capsized in waters off Yemen and Djibouti, killing at least two people and 186 are missing, according to the United Nations Immigration Agency.
A spokesman for the International Organization for Migration (IOM) said on Friday that two boats overthrew Yemen late on Thursday.
Tamim Elean said two crew members were rescued, but 181 migrants and five Yemeni crew remained missing.
Yemen’s IOM mission chief said the majority on board is believed to be Ethiopian immigrants, while five are believed to be Yemeni crew members. At least 57 women from both boats.
“We are working with the authorities to see if we can find survivors, but we are worried that we don’t have anything,” Abdusattor Esoev told AFP news agency.
The other two boats overthrew the small state of Djibouti in Africa at about the same time, Elean said. Two immigrants were recovered and everything else on the ship was rescued.
Despite decades of civil war, Yemen continues to be the main route for migrants and refugees from East Africa, and the Horn of Africa, to arrive in the Gulf states. Hundreds of thousands of people try to cross over the country each year.
To reach Yemen, people are taken to smugglers and often carry dangerous and overcrowded boats across the Red Sea or the Gulf of Aden.
The number of people who go to Yemen reached 97,200 in 2023. By 2021 it tripled.
However, last year, this month’s IOM report found that number fell below 61,000 amid an increase in waters patrols.
The IOM said 558 people died along the route in 2024.
In January, 20 Ethiopians were killed when they overthrew Yemen.
According to the IOM, at least 2,082 people have disappeared along the route in the last decade.
Currently, around 380,000 immigrants are in Yemen.
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